OSAKA, JAPAN | Nippon Synthetic Chemical Industry Co., in an exclusive global licensing agreement with Nanobiomatters, Valencia, Spain, launches the first of a series of EVOH/specialty clay composites. Nippon is marketing the EVOH clay composite products using Nanobiomatter’s proprietary clay-based additive O2Block Barrier—designed to improve various polymers such as EVOH—under the Soarnol NC Series trade name.

The first commercial grade is Soarnol NC7003, launched at the recent NPE2012. It is a fully formulated grade based on 29 ethylene content EVOH. The company reports it can offer data showing notable improvement in barrier over conventional EVOH, especially at high humidity. Nippon plans to introduce additional grades based on different ethylene content EVOH later this year.